Don't be so hard on Nicht. Glad it wasn't me that was looking at this. I wouldn't have thought to look for patches, because it was so typical of a Glidos problem. I would have spent a month trying to fix Glidos. Actually I bet some of the problems can be fixed by changing Glidos, but only in ways that deviate from correct Glide emulation and hence break other games.

I know about the problems with mission briefing. The game writes directly to the frame buffer to do that. Glidos has to pass the game a pretend frame buffer, and check the whole area for changes. Its difficult to know when to check; too often and everything runs too slow.

Also I'd expect you not to be able to run the game above 640x480. But you wouldn't gain much if you could, because Glidos already expands the resolution in a way that has similar effects.

When you got a bad frame rate with v1.23, did you get lots of messages (all capitalised) in the Glidos dialog?

Snover wrote:

Geeze, Nicht, don't you ever check for patches before you complain? 😉

Well Phbtt....none of the patches mention fixing things on the 3dfx side (except for v1.23, which will hose it). Didn't seem like there would be any effect, and the software version didn't have any of the next-level/restart problems.

Really, for such old stuff, 640x480 should be fine anyway. Just use 4xFSAA to bump it up to an effective 1600x1200 if you're so concerned about running it at such low resolutions.

Was kind of hoping to run at 1024x768 with Anti-Aliasing. Yes, I can run it with anti-aliasing now, but at 640x480 there's barely enough resolution to notice the difference (Actually, I almost always leave on the Quincunx Anti-Aliasing).

Glidos wrote:

Don't be so hard on Nicht.

Ya see, Snover? Ya big meanie 😜

I know about the problems with mission briefing. The game writes directly to the frame buffer to do that. Glidos has to pass the game a pretend frame buffer, and check the whole area for changes. Its difficult to know when to check; too often and everything runs too slow.

Ah. Don't recall it coming up wrong on the demo version. Not a big deal. I actually noticed some odd (very minor) artifacting when the messaging came up in software mode.

When you got a bad frame rate with v1.23, did you get lots of messages (all capitalised) in the Glidos dialog?

Not a lot. Primarily this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting Glide Server v1.18 (c) Paul Gardiner 2001-2002
GRSSTQUERYBOARDS@4
Resolution = 640x480
Refresh rate = 60Hz
Color format = ARGB
Number of color buffers = 2
Number of aux buffers = 0
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GUFOGGENERATELINEAR@12
GlideShutdown
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only appeared occasionally. Average framerate would be about 3 or 4 frames per second, dropping to 1 or 2 when things got too "busy".

Okay, its not the messages causing problems. I expect v1.23 does a lot more with the frame buffer. That can kill Glidos. From what you were saying, you don't really need to go as far as v1.23; is that right?

Note the thing about the resolution. Set it through Glidos, not in the game.

Glidos wrote:

I expect v1.23 does a lot more with the frame buffer. That can kill Glidos.

v1.23 modifies the 3dfx output for use with the Voodoo 2. That's probably slapping the OpenGlide around.

From what you were saying, you don't really need to go as far as v1.23; is that right?

Right. BlueByte identifies the Voodoo2 support as the only change in this patch.

v1.20,1.21, and v1.22 should be fine.

Note the thing about the resolution. Set it through Glidos, not in the game.

Well, yes I was using GliDOS settings. Like the demo, you don't really choose the game's resolution; the installer performs a series of video tests, then picks a "best mode" for you.

Still, to debug, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at v1.23. 😉

Yes true. That thought did occur to me. I ought to try to get a copy of the game.

dgVoodoo works better than Glidos and is free.

Only thing to worry about is CD emulation and Joystick emulation.